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Monday, 24 September 2012

The Troika Decimation of a Once Proud Nation - Hungary's Struggles and the Fight For Their Sovereignty

I've come across many articles recently about the plights of Hungary in dealing with the Troika and the ridiculous conditions imposed on ECB/IMF loans.In response, Hungary has ousted the IMF, as well as Biotech giant Monsanto - genetically modified seeds are banned in Hungary - and continues to fight to maintain its sovereignty in the face of economic disaster and growing pressure from Western corporate interests to cede.

You can read more about the fight against the IMF and Monsanto here, but I'll touch on a few sections that I find rather intresting and thought-provoking:

Hungary threw hopes for a new loan to prop up its sagging economy into disarray on Thursday as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rejected what he called unacceptable IMF conditions, crushing prospects for a fast agreement. Orbán, in a video posted on his Facebook page, cited demands from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a raft of changes that he said were too high a price for Hungary to pay.

"From cutting pensions to reducing bureaucracy to scrapping the bank tax and the funds to be made available to banks, everything is in there that's not in Hungary's interest,"Orbán said. "The parliamentary group meeting (of the ruling Fidesz party) took the view, and I personally agree with it, that at this price, this will not work," he added. [..]

To reverse that momentum, Orbán is pushing a 300 billion forint ($1.33 billion) job saving plan, partly funded by a new tax on central bank operations, a key sticking point in the IMF talks, which the European Central Bank has also criticised. [..]

"Junk"-rated Hungary faces a repayment hump in the next five quarters, with the equivalent of €4.6 billion euros falling due from its previous IMF/EU bailout alone.

And here, in regards to the culling of GMO Maize:

In an effort to rid the country of Monsanto's GMO products, Hungary has stepped up the pace. This looks like its going to be another slap in the face for Monsanto. A new regulation was introduced this March which stipulates that seeds are supposed to be checked for GMO before they are introduced to the market. Unfortunately, some GMO seeds made it to the farmers without them knowing it.

Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added.

Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The checks will continue despite the fact that seed traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said. During their investigation, controllers have found Pioneer and Monsanto products among the seeds planted.

See here for the US trade war approach to dealing with people who don't want Monsanto's poison GMO crops in their country. We already begin to see the start of this with the attacks from financial markets on Hungary's economy.

Predictably, the president of the country is being demonized in the Western media as a dictator. Highlights of anti-government protests - 40,000 people strong - where many protesters used the terminology "regime" to describe the current government, received much Western media coverage.In contrast, a similar protest topping 500,000 people in favour of the government and their anti-Troika, anti-austerity and pro-sovereignty and domestic economy stance received virtually no coverage whatsoever. It would seem that yet another threat to the US Corporate Empire has arisen, and the media sheep are behaving in a predictable fashion.

• At the same time of the anti-government protests, there was another rally in support of the government, and against the EU and IMF policies. This protest, rather than 40.000, numbered in the hundreds of thousands (500.000), and was mainly ignored by the west.

In addition to fighting back against the IMF/Troika in regards to taking loans with ridiculous conditions placed upon them, the government has also raised taxes on foreign banks and businesses - as previously they paid almost none.

• According to Hungarian economist Imre Boros, the Orbán government declared that foreign banks and corporations, who hardly paid any taxes at all before, would have to pay more. 13 foreign multinationals and 5 major global banks then went to the to EU to complain about the new taxes, and the financial markets attacked the Hungarian economy. Plus, rumors are being spread about anti-semitism and lack of freedom for the press, rumors which Boros says are simply not true ("Everybody writes here whatever they wish").

Great news, right? Someone finally standing up to those who seek to dismantle national governments in favour of a central authority.

Well, good things don't last forever.

It now appears as though, in spite of the sovereign wishes of Hungary's government and people, the IMF is once again knocking at the gate. Orbán has begun meetings again with the IMF/ECB/Troika in light of the financial attacks on their economy, and in the midst of mounting pressure from European governments and central authorities, as well as the international media that are portraying him as a crazed dictator rather than someone attempting to liberate his people from the shackles of central banking oppression. You can read the whole article in full in the link below from theautomaticearth.com. They give great opinions and insight, and present quite a spectrum of information.

What I'm interested in for now is not politics, but finance, even if
the two seem intricately intertwined. Any country, and its leaders, that
dares resist the ever more suffocating global powers of the IMF, the
EU/ECB, and the banking system and multinationals (think Monsanto) they
serve, quite simply looks of interest to me. There are schemes and
policies being executed in our names that we shouldn't wish to sign off
on, by power hungry people hiding behind the veils of global
corporations and über-government institutions, and the victims of these
policies are real people, just like we are. If anything, that's what
Hungary teaches us.